Summertime

I expected tonight’s walk to be a treat.  Enough of the neighborhood, I was going to take Banks down to Town Lake and circle our beloved trail.  I had my headphones, with KMFA’s classical music blaring in my ears.  We started at about 6:20, so there was no rush to finish before dark.
 

But I was distracted  and uncomfortable.  I was really thirsty, and all I could think about was the next water stop.  A friend had shared a beans and rice dish she made for lunch, and I kept farting.

 As I said a couple of blogs ago, summer is my least favorite season.  I like structure and routine, and summer is by definition leisurely and wide-open.  I also suspect that a large part of it is my own history.  I got divorced when the boys were quite young, and summer represented for me a terrifying three-month stretch of camps I could not afford, day care centers the boys hated and, to be perfectly honest, occasions when Sam was in charge at a younger age than the experts recommend.  The start of school in late August  represented freedom for me. 

I’ll get through it, like I do ever y year.  But as September gets closer, I will feel myself coming alive again.  Football season is about to start.  Back-to-school  sales  are in full swing.  Work starts to pick up.  Heat and humidity still hang oppressively over the city, but there is the knowledge  that in, oh, another two, three months, we might get that first nip in the air.

So, summer unofficially starts Monday, Memorial Day.  Like I do every year, I’ll spend the weekend making up a list of books to read and tasks to accomplish.  And at the end of August, I’ll cross off the last one on my list:  walk 410 miles.